The Jacket (Star-Rover) eBook

“We are man and woman, you and I. Our life
is of this world. Of these other worlds is all
a madness. Let these mad dreamers go the way
of their dreaming. Deny them not what they desire
above all things, above meat and wine, above song
and battle, even above love of woman. Deny them
not their hearts’ desires that draw them across
the dark of the grave to their dreams of lives beyond
this world. Let them pass. But you and
I abide here in all the sweet we have discovered of
each other. Quickly enough will come the dark,
and you depart for your coasts of sun and flowers,
and I for the roaring table of Valhalla.”

“No! no!” she cried, half-tearing herself
away. “You do not understand. All
of greatness, all of goodness, all of God are in this
man who is more than man; and it is a shameful death
to die. Only slaves and thieves so die.
He is neither slave nor thief. He is an immortal.
He is God. Truly I tell you He is God.”

“He is immortal you say,” I contended.
“Then to die to-day on Golgotha will not shorten
his immortality by a hair’s breadth in the span
of time. He is a god you say. Gods cannot
die. From all I have been told of them, it is
certain that gods cannot die.”

“Oh!” she cried. “You will
not understand. You are only a great giant thing
of flesh.”

“Is it not said that this event was prophesied
of old time?” I queried, for I had been learning
from the Jews what I deemed their subtleties of thinking.

“Yes, yes,” she agreed, “the Messianic
prophecies. This is the Messiah.”

“Then who am I,” I asked, “to make
liars of the prophets? to make of the Messiah a false
Messiah? Is the prophecy of your people so feeble
a thing that I, a stupid stranger, a yellow northling
in the Roman harness, can give the lie to prophecy
and compel to be unfulfilled—­the very thing
willed by the gods and foretold by the wise men?”

“You do not understand,” she repeated.

“I understand too well,” I replied.
“Am I greater than the gods that I may thwart
the will of the gods? Then are gods vain things
and the playthings of men. I am a man.
I, too, bow to the gods, to all gods, for I do believe
in all gods, else how came all gods to be?”

She flung herself so that my hungry arms were empty
of her, and we stood apart and listened to the uproar
of the street as Jesus and the soldiers emerged and
started on their way. And my heart was sore in
that so great a woman could be so foolish. She
would save God. She would make herself greater
than God.

“You do not love me,” she said slowly,
and slowly grew in her eyes a promise of herself too
deep and wide for any words.

“I love you beyond your understanding, it seems,”
was my reply. “I am proud to love you,
for I know I am worthy to love you and am worth all
love you may give me. But Rome is my foster-mother,
and were I untrue to her, of little pride, of little
worth would be my love for you.”